Youth temporary mobility occurs for purposes such as volunteering, Erasmus exchanges and linguistic stays. Although it is increasingly common, a large proportion of young adults are not mobile. This study is based on a large‐scale survey among young adults in Switzerland. It draws on the concept of motility to analyse the barriers to temporary mobility, where motility may be defined as a set of mobility resources that refer to three dimensions: access (e.g., financial means or time), skills (e.g., languages and self‐confidence) and appropriation (e.g., level of interest). A typology places nonmobile young adults on a continuum between ‘stillness’ (no desire to move) and ‘stuckness’ (unable to move) and identifies four groups: ‘the constrained’ and ‘the financially challenged’ are often constrained to a varying extent by their socio‐economic background, their educational pathways and their family network. ‘The locally anchored’ and especially ‘the satisfied stayers’ face fewer constraints and draw more on their own agency to be nonmobile.